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To Eat and Drink What No One Has Tried Before

STEEPED Rich Gorski and Laura Tringale, technicians at Mattson, a food and beverage developer, working on a tea recipe.Credit
Fred Mertz for The New York Times

FOSTER CITY, Calif.

IF Willy Wonka were a real person, he might well be confecting in a white coat at Mattson, a food lab here, just south of San Francisco, home to some of the brightest and most far-out food creators in the country. There are no Everlasting Gobstoppers rolling off a conveyor belt. Instead, this lab is the creative control center for thousands of items Americans eat every day. Whether it’s frozen, cooked or poured, chances are Mattson has had a hand in bringing it to your mouth.

Mattson, which is named for its founder, Pete Mattson, calls itself the largest independent developer of new food and beverage products in the United States. It is difficult to quantify the competition, because some food labs develop only formulas, while others focus solely on preparation and packaging. Mattson estimates it has just a few competitors, and says that none of them provide its range of services.

What sets Mattson apart is its presence across the beverage, fast food and packaged goods industries. Its 70 employees cross-train as chefs, food scientists, engineers and marketing specialists to deliver products for clients like Starbucks, Del Monte and Mrs. Fields cookies. They are inventors as well as entertainers who are committed to innovation, seeing it as critical to success in the vast, competitive and disaster-littered world of food creation.

“In the food industry, your greatest competitive advantage is being first to market,” said Steve Gundrum, president and chief executive of Mattson. “It’s all about speed.”

The company’s imprint is found on a wide variety of products, from the award-winning Mama Zella pizza pie from Round Table to Pom Wonderful pomegranate juice. Dozens more are kept in the secret “trophy room” because of agreements with the companies.

Development in the food and beverage industry is accelerating because people seemingly have an endless appetite for new tastes, and Wall Street demands growth from companies in the food business. According to Mintel, a market-research firm in Chicago, nearly 10,000 food products were introduced in the United States between January and August this year. Most were beverages, followed by bakery goods and seasonings. In 2006, there were more than 17,000 new food products, 63 percent more than in 2000, the firm says.

Mattson turns 30 in October, and to date, Mr. Gundrum says, it has helped get to market 300 product lines, more than 1,000 products, including four varieties of frozen meals for Banquet Crock-Pot Classics by ConAgra. Mattson says it has 300 prototypes in development. Most of the company’s clients are based in America; they generally pay $30,000 to $500,000 to roll out a concept. Food Processing magazine, the industry’s largest publication, will release a survey in October showing that 28 percent of respondents say they use independent product-development labs in addition to internal laboratories to research and develop products.

They do so because many large companies are too “vertically integrated,” Mr. Gundrum said, which means they know all the manufacturing stages about a beverage, say, but may not know how to expand into frozen foods. He added, “They need someone like us to say, ‘No, the best idea is to go here.’ ”

In the 20,000-square-foot Mattson development lab, harmony reigns partly because of the corporate structure. Mr. Gundrum bought the company from Mr. Mattson in 1995 and created an employee stock ownership plan, transferring equity in the company to members of the staff. Employees are offered $1,000 cash if they buy a hybrid vehicle. Mr. Gundrum declined to state the business’s revenues, but said he holds growth to 10 percent a year to maintain the quality of the services.

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There are no visible barriers where the employees work. For example, there are no cabinet doors to impede technicians searching for National Starch’s Baka-Snak pre-gelatinized modified food starch; T. Hasegawa’s Natural Wok Oil Flavor No. FC 989800; or the Blue-10 Buffer Solution, used to modify relative acidity. Searching, after all, wastes precious time. The employees practice a genteel form of “shout mail” and interrupt one another to taste a concoction.

“We have become incredibly efficient at looking at something, taking one bite and knowing how to improve it without getting approval from your boss or your boss’s boss or writing a memo,” Mr. Gundrum said. “We just don’t have that kind of ceremony.”

What Mattson does have is a nose for trends. It obsessively investigates popular culture, analyzing not only dietary needs and flavor crazes, but also lifestyle patterns and the Internet marketplace. For example, the company has observed that detailed information on the Web allows people to find out how to create a recipe, say, or crush their own wine. The demand for spicy and sweet is intense, and a move toward more casual dining is indicative of trends like a Caesar salad you can eat with your hands.

To bring these trends home to clients, Mattson often asks them to roll up their sleeves and work on prototypes with the staff when visiting the lab. Some clients, like White Castle, the fast-food chain based in Columbus, Ohio, touch down once a year to participate in what Mattson calls its “trends luncheons.” White Castle has been working with Mattson for four years and attributes the success of its roasted garlic cheeseburger and chicken rings to its work with the food scientists and marketing gurus here.

One day this month, Jamie T. Richardson, the director of marketing for the White Castle Management Company, listened to a presentation on 18 food trends while Mattson chefs served him an eight-course lunch. Each recipe illustrated what Mattson views as the next big craving or a coming retail concept: blueberries are out, and acai fruit (pronounced ah-sigh-EE) is in as a superfood; and specifying provenance, not only on restaurant menus but also on packaged products, is gaining momentum.

Guided by a Mattson chef, Mr. Richardson used a syringe to inject propylene glycol alginate, espresso and sugar into a martini glass of calcium lactate and water to create “javiar” — java and caviar — which he ate on toast as a palate cleanser. “We get access to some of the best minds in the business and resources that allow us to move more quickly and think more effectively,” he said. “Resource-wise, it is not efficient for us to try to replicate this.”

Mattson also does rigorous market testing. A staging area sends as many as 12,000 prototypes — like granola bars, salad kits, frozen pizza and carbonated beverages — to American households annually. (The link to participate is foodcom.com/signup.) Within hours of participants’ receiving products, Mattson provides clients with recorded voice-mail messages that reflect the recipients’ visceral responses to packaging, taste and ease of use.

The future at Mattson is a closely guarded secret, but Mr. Gundrum was willing to describe today’s appetite. “In the past, you had to give up something to eat wholesome,” he said. “Something we’re striving to do is improve the pleasure from really healthy foods. It’s not the next frontier. It’s the existing frontier.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page H6 of the National edition with the headline: To Eat and Drink What No One Has Tried Before. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe